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I realize that the meaning of these two sentences might be different but I am only concerned with the grammar.
– LmisJul 7 '16 at 5:12

1

Note that the case of "dessen" and "welcher" is ruled by the preposition. während wants the genitive - You might see dative in places, but that is considered colloquial - So your examples using während with dative would in a strict sense be wrong.
– tofroJul 7 '16 at 10:50

You apparently don't read answers well: The answer below clearly says "während" simply translates to while and does not imply a causal but rather a temporal relation. Why do you still ask for "während" and an obvious causal connection?
– tofroJul 7 '16 at 14:10

@tofro Because that was part of the original question. I edited for clarification of the original question not to introduce changes to it. Thus it follows that all parts of the question are repeated. I think you will find that in the opening sentence I ask if I may change dessen for während. You tell me in your answer - among other things, that are not part of the question, but thank you for your efforts anyways - that no, I cannot.
– LmisJul 7 '16 at 15:57

In the last comment of mine it should read "if I may change dessen to welches or welchem"
– LmisJul 7 '16 at 16:31

3 Answers
3

Quick Answer

Is only the use of "dessen" correct in the following sentences or would either "welches" or "welchem" also be acceptable in any of them? If so, why?

You can substitute dessen for welches and still have a grammatically correct sentence. You cannot change it to welchem though since that is the dative case. The difference between dessen and welches is that one is the genitive of der and the other of welcher whereas welchem is the dative of welcher so there is never a case (that I am aware of) where you can exchange welcher for welchem.

Also as @tofro noted während means while or during, so in the second sentence I would assume that you are reading the book at the same time as the course is being held whereas the first case does not imply that. For the purposes of your proposed substitutions, however, there is no difference as I explain below.

Explanation

In both sentences you wish to refer to Programm in the second preposition. The grammar becomes more clear if we just replace that reference with a repetition of Programm

The meaning is of course changed, but we don't care, we are just the grammar police and the grammar is still fine. However, if we do your last proposed substitution and jam a welchem in there, we must assume that the case is dative because otherwise welchem could not occur.

note here währenddessen is a single word, (this fact is one of the trickier things in German grammar that a lot of native speakers get wrong). It simply means "while". That means that there is no causal connection between me reading the book and the project, just a coincidence in time.

währenddessen is maybe not the most ideal choice here, as it is normally used to express "I'm wasting time while I wait" or two entirely unrelated processes happen at the same time.

Your examples using während sometimes use the dative, sometimes the genitive. während does, however, rule the genitive. For some reason "...während welches..." does not go down well with me, even if it looks gramatically correct.

Using im Rahmen does only make sense to me used with the genitive es well.

Thank you for your answer. However, I think my comment made clear that I am aware of the difference in meaning and I don't ask how to communicate anything. I care about the grammar. I wish to know by what rule of the German language it is, that people can or cannot say sentences like Ich nehme an einem Fest teil, Im Rahmen *welchem* eine Kuh gezeigt wird. It does not matter to me, what that means but only wether it is a gramatically correct - not necessarily senible sounding - statement and why
– LmisJul 7 '16 at 9:44

To clarify further, note, that I would like to know not if the example sentence are fine (I assumed that much, but thank you for verifying) but rather if they are still fine if I substitute the word "dessen" for something else. Like is Ich nehme an einem Programm teil, während welchem ich ein Buch lese also grammatically correct? Can I use dative case to refer to Programm there? Can I use other cases? Why or why not?
– LmisJul 7 '16 at 9:50